Google Book Settlement - maybe not so fast?

It looks as if the venerable New York Law School is weighing in and asking Judge Chin of the SDNY to delay approval of the settlement until antitrust concerns are adequately considered. The first story on this is here.

Interestingly, the story also reports that:

Google foe Microsoft has agreed to contribute $50,000 to New York Law School to help fund a host of projects related to the book search settlement, including the friend-of-the-court brief, a symposium, and three white papers.

Grimmelmann said Microsoft will have no influence over the project, and his written proposal seeking funding from the software giant also spelled out that the work will be independent. "If Microsoft was to come back to us and try to put any pressure on how this comes out, we'd say, 'That's not how this works,'" he said.

More on Microsoft's involvement can be found here.

And now more in general about growing opposition as reported in the NY Times here.

Objections can be filed with the Court until May 5, 2009.

HK